Mom died three times before dinner. Every fucking holiday. Without fail, Gigi would eventually say, “I’m getting shaky, honey. I need to eat,” to whomever was closest, “on account of the diabetes.”
A grandchild would yell, “Someone feed Grandma!” and a domino effect began. Three full-sized adults in the kitchen juggling turkey and ham and corn casserole and bread and beans and pies would stumble into each other to put together a plate to keep her alive until the turkey was done and then knock each other over to hand a plate of something or other to a grandkid so grandma didn’t die a fourth time only to be told, “It’s cold.”
As if saltines and hard candies haven’t kept diabetics alive for ten more minutes for centuries.
We, the practical, tried to be proactive. One of us would put aside a plate for grandma and puff up proud as if we’d dodge Gigi’s disappointment just once.
“I don’t really care for crackers and cheese, honey. Isn’t there something hot for me to eat?’
Once, in line at a funeral visitation for a cousin, Ma pulled the minister aside to whisper, “Is there anything I could snack on? I’m getting shaky, on account of the diabetes.”
I smiled at him through my teeth and stage-whispered to her, “Where would he have food, Mom?”
“What do you mean,” she asked, pretending to be shocked at my transparency, “He’s in charge of this thing, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t live here, Mom. This is a funeral home, not his church. Where would he have food, in his vestments?”
“Well, no. He’s not Catholic.”
“Didn’t you eat before I picked you up?”
“No. I wasn’t hungry. And I figured we’d go to lunch.”
“Did you test your blood this morning?”
“No. I had to get dressed to come to this thing.”
“So, you skipped breakfast, didn’t test your glucose and now you want the minister to feed you.”
“Don’t get mad at me. You know I need to eat. I’m getting shaky.”
“I’m going to hit you.”
She pretended to tear up.
“If you’re going to pretend to cry, pretend it’s for Walter. I’ll go get the car. We can go to lunch now.”
“Ooh, I love IHOP.”
The minister looked at me as if he were familiar with my deflatedness. It helped.
Every restaurant we ever went to, the server got an earful of information about Type II diabetes and my mother’s need to eat. Every family gathering, every picnic, every birthday party, Gigi had to be fed before every four year old.
Ten minutes in and the host was in the kitchen making a ham sandwich for grandma.
And grandma would eat the damned birthday cake too.
She would call me at various hours of the day or night to come over and make scrambled eggs for her. She’d call my daughter to come over at 9am to make her some soup. She’d call to say she passed out. She’d call to say she fell trying to take down a curtain rod. She’d call to say she was dizzy or she felt like throwing up if she crossed her legs or the diabetes made her neck hurt. She’d call to say she needed laundry done because she pooped her pants. I pulled a fuse in her car so it wouldn’t start because she kept stopping in the middle of the street to throw up.
If I didn’t answer my phone, she’d call an ambulance. When the EMTs reprimanded her for making unnecessary 911 calls, she’d call her neighbor instead and ask for their leftovers. She gave her neighbors my phone number so they could call me if they had concerns.
She had the locks changed on her house four times because she got shaky and confused and couldn’t find her house keys.
I told her, “Mom, if you can call me to come make scrambled eggs, you can call me to come find your keys.”
She’d say, “You never answer your phone.”
I’d ask if she left a voicemail.
She’d say she didn’t bother because if I didn’t answer it meant I didn’t want to talk to her.
“You spent $300 to have the locks changed on your house because you didn’t want to leave me a voicemail. Did you ever find your keys?”
“Yes. They were in my purse.”
“Was your purse with you?”
“No. It was in the house.”
“Mom. You have a deadbolt.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“How did you lock the keys in the house if you have a deadbolt and you need your keys to lock it?”
“Oh, I went out the back door.”
“You locked the front door from the inside and then went out the back door and left your purse and keys inside?”
“Apparently.”
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“I don’t like what you’re implying.”
“Were you planning on going somewhere?”
“Well, yes, thank you very much. I was going to take myself to lunch.”
“So, you locked the deadbolt on the front door from the inside, went out the back door, locked it behind you and left your purse and keys inside.”
“Looks that way.”
“And you remembered to take your cell phone?”
“I knew I was going to have to call the locksmith.”
“You locked yourself out of your house on purpose.”
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
“How’d you get the phone number for the locksmith?”
“I looked it up in the phone book.”
“Let me guess. Before you went outside?”
“Yes. I was thinking ahead.”
Then she went and got mesenteric ischemia. Which no one deserves.
And I’m forgetting her. I’m forgetting everyone. Unless a person is speaking to me, other people don’t exist for me anymore. Perhaps I should worry. I can’t remember why.
Some days I forget I’m listening to music with my ear buds in and I break into song. Sometimes I’m not home alone. When my husband doesn’t speak to me, he doesn’t exist. But I suspect he has noticed because he looks, confused, in my direction. As if the couch just started singing the blues.
But there are people I am forgetting I didn’t want to forget. My brother. My son. Two of my granddaughters. That one person. People who are still alive. People I have disappointed. People who have disappointed me. And I can’t make it stop.
This one wants to give an apology. That one wants me to give one. Some people don’t give two shits either way. Some people feel ignored. Some think they’re ignoring me.
It’s as if one day I decided to gather up every ache I ever owned and toss them into the wind so they’d go away. And they went. So I did it again and again and again. And she was tangled up in there with all of that.
But mesenteric ischemia is a slow way to die that I don’t want to remember. There is sudden, unexplained puking. There is shitting your pants. There is puking and shitting your pants at the same time. There are blocked arteries and vascular dementia and moments of crystal clear clarity that you are, literally, losing your shit. There is dizziness when you look up. There is nausea when you cross your legs. There is chaos in logic and logic in chaos.
There is reaching out in confusion for someone to help. Anyone. A daughter. A granddaughter. A neighbor. A locksmith. A minister.
There is a lot of hungry, a lot of shaky, a lot of needing to eat. There is starving to death without even knowing. There is sitting naked in a wheelchair in a puddle of your own shit with puke on your tits in the middle of a room full of relatives and medical personnel with your head in your hands.
And I’ll be damned if her last words to me weren’t, “I’m getting shaky, honey. I need to eat.”
And my last kind act as her daughter was to lie to her.
“I’ll tell the doctor, Ma. We’ll see what he says.”
She patted my hand and smiled, as if I were her good girl. I didn’t feel like a good girl. I felt like a terrible girl. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for ever being annoyed. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for letting any of her calls go to voicemail. I wanted to go back in time before the first time she reminded someone she needed to eat and feed her before she could ask. Something warm and comfortable to settle her stomach.
Instead, I sent a thank you note to her neighbor for cleaning up her poop.
It’s possible you feel ignored and want an apology but I don’t remember you. And if I’m sorry, I don’t remember why. I do know I was thankful once. That’s what I will focus on today. The idea that in the chaos and logic, at some point in time there was a me and there was a you and our bellies were full and fine.
Barefoot Iowa 